Innu

The Innut -- singular: Innu/'Ilnu -- formerly called Montagnais, are the Indigenous Canadians who inhabit northeastern Labrador in present-day Newfoundland and Labrador and some portions of Quebec. They refer to their traditional homeland as Nitassinan or Innu-assi.
The ancestors of the modern First Nations were known to have lived on these lands as hunter-gatherers for many thousands of years. To support their seasonal hunting migrations, they created portable tents made of animal skins. Their subsistence activities were historically centred on hunting and trapping caribou, moose, deer, and small game.
Their language, which changed over time from Old Montagnais to Innu-aimun, is spoken throughout Nitassinan, with certain dialect differences. It is part of the Cree–Montagnais–Naskapi dialect continuum, and is unrelated to the Inuit languages of other nearby peoples.
The "Innu/Ilnu" consist of two regional tribal groups, with the Innus of Nutashkuan being the southernmost group and the Naskapi being the northernmost group. Both groups differ in dialect and partly also in their way of life and culture. These differences include:
the Ilnu, Nehilaw or "Western/Southern Montagnais" in the south, speak the "l"-dialect, and
the Innu or "Eastern Montagnais" live further north; they speak the "n"-dialect
Both groups are still called "Montagnais" in the official language of Crown–Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada. The Naskapi, who live further north, also identify as Innu or Iyiyiw.
Today, about 28,960 people of Innu origin live in various Indian settlements and reserves in Quebec and Labrador. To avoid confusion with the Inuit, who belong to the Eskimoan peoples, today only the singular form "Innu/Ilnu" is used for the Innu, members of the large Cree-language family. The plural form of "Innut/Innuat/Ilnuatsh'" has been abandoned.

Montagnais, Naskapi or Innu

The people are frequently classified by the geography of their primary locations:

the Neenoilno, live along the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in Quebec; they have historically been referred to by Europeans as Montagnais, or Innu proper
The Naskapi, live farther north and are less numerous. The Innu recognize several distinctions among their people based on different regional affiliations and speakers of various dialects of the Innu language.Image:Innus.png|thumb|Innu communities of Quebec and Labrador and the two Naskapi communities |alt=

The word Naskapi was first recorded by French colonists in the 17th century. They applied it to distant Innu groups who were beyond the reach of Catholic missionary influence. It was particularly applied to those people living in the lands that bordered Ungava Bay and the northern Labrador coast, near the Inuit communities of northern Quebec and northern Labrador. Gradually it came to refer to the people known today as the Naskapi First Nation.
The Naskapi are traditionally nomadic peoples, in contrast with the more sedentary Montagnais, who establish settled territories.
The Mushuau Innuat, while related to the Naskapi, split off from the tribe in the 1900s. They were subject to a government relocation program at Davis Inlet. Some of the families of the Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach have close relatives in the Cree village of Whapmagoostui, on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay.
Since 1990, the Montagnais people have generally chosen to be officially referred to as the Innu, which means human being in Innu-aimun. The Naskapi have continued to use the word Naskapi.

Innu communities

Labrador communities

Quebec communities

Conseil tribal Mamit Innuat

About 3,700 members

Conseil tribal Mamuitun

Over 23,000 members

Kawawachikamach

History

The Innu were possibly the group identified in Greenlandic Norse by Norsemen as Skrælings. They referred to Nitassinan as Markland.
The Innu were historically allied with neighbouring Atikamekw, Wolastoqiyik and Algonquin peoples against their enemies, the Algonquian-speaking Mi'kmaq and Iroquoian-speaking Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Iroquois repeatedly invaded the Innu territories from their homelands south of the Great Lakes. They took women and young males as captive slaves, and plundered their hunting grounds in search of more furs. Since these raids were made by the Iroquois with unprecedented brutality, the Innu themselves adopted the torment, torture, and cruelty of their enemies.
The Naskapi, on the other hand, usually had to confront the southward advancing Inuit in the east of the peninsula.
Innu oral tradition describes the original encounters of the Innu and the French explorers led by Samuel de Champlain as fraught with distrust. Neither group understood the language of the other, and the Innu were concerned about the motives of the French explorers.
The French asked permission to settle on the Innu's coastal land, which the Innu called Uepishtikueiau. This eventually developed as Quebec City. According to oral tradition, the Innu at first declined their request. The French demonstrated their ability to farm wheat on the land and promised they would share their bounty with the Innu in the future, which the Innu accepted.
Two distinct versions of the oral history describe the outcome. In the first, the French used gifts of farmed food and manufactured goods to encourage the Innu to become dependent on them. Then, the French changed it to a mercantile relationship: trading these items to the Innu in exchange for furs. When the nomadic Innu went inland for the winter, the French increased the size and population of their settlement considerably, eventually completely displacing the Innu.
The second, and more widespread, version of the oral history describes a more immediate conflict. In this version, the Innu taught the French how to survive in their traditional lands. Once the French had learned enough to survive on their own, they began to resent the Innu. The French began to attack the Innu, who retaliated in an attempt to reclaim their ancestral territory. The Innu had a disadvantage in numbers and weaponry, and eventually began to avoid the area rather than risk further defeat. During this conflict, the French colonists took many Innu women as wives. French women did not immigrate to New France in the early period.
French explorer Samuel de Champlain eventually became involved in the Innu's conflict with the Iroquois, who were ranging north from their traditional territory around the Great Lakes in present-day New York and Pennsylvania. On July 29, 1609, at Ticonderoga or Crown Point, New York,, Champlain and his party encountered a group of Iroquois, likely Mohawk, who were the easternmost tribe of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. A battle began the next day. As two hundred Iroquois advanced on Champlain's position, a native guide pointed out the three enemy chiefs to the French. According to legend, Champlain fired his arquebus and killed two of the Mohawk chiefs with one shot; one of his men shot and killed the third. The Mohawk reportedly fled the scene. Although the French also traded extensively with the Mohawk and other Iroquois, and converted some to Catholicism, they also continued to have armed conflicts with them.

Historical bands

The southern bands of the Montagnais-Naksapi were encountered by Europeans early in the seventeenth century while the northern ones, except for some on James Bay, were not well known until the nineteenth century.
The following are bands of the Montagnais-Naksapi in the 17th century:

Bersimis, around the Bersimis River
Chicoutimi, north of Chicoutimi
Chisedec, around Seven Islands and around the Moise River
Escoumains, around the Escoumains River
Godbout, around the Godbout River
Mistassini, around Lake Mistassini
Nichikun, around Nichikun Lake
Ouchestigouetch, at the heads of Manikuagan and Kaniapiskau Rivers.
Oumamiwek, west of the Ste. Marguerite River
Papinachois, at the head of the Bersimis River and east of it
Tadousac, west of the lower Saguenay River

By 1850, the Chisedec, Oumamiwek, and Papinachois had disappeared or been renamed, and many new bands in the north of Nitassinan were discovered:

Barren Ground, on the middle course of the George River
Big River, around the Great Whale and Fort George Rivers
Davis Inlet, south of the Barren Ground band
Eastmain, north of the Eastmain River.
Kaniapiskau, at the head of the Kaniapiskau River
Michikamau, around Michikamau Lake
Mingan, on the Mingan River
Musquaro, on the Olomanoshibo River
Natashkwan, on the Natashkwan River
Northwest River, north of Hamilton Inlet and on the Northwest River
Petisikapau, in the country around Petisikapau Lake
Rupert House, around Rupert Bay and the Rupert River
St. Augustin, on the St. Augustin River
Shelter Bay, around modern-day Shelter Bay
Ungava, southwest of the Ungava Bay
Waswanipi, on the Waswanipi River
White Whale River, between Lake Minto and Little Whale River and eastward to the Kaniapiskau River
Present status

The Innu of Labrador and those living on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the Canadian Shield region have never officially ceded their territory to Canada by way of treaty or other agreement. But, as European-Canadians began widespread forest and mining operations at the turn of the 20th century, the Innu became increasingly settled in coastal communities and in the interior of Quebec. The Canadian and provincial governments, the Catholic, Moravian, and Anglican churches, all encouraged the Innu to settle in more permanent, majority-style communities, in the belief that their lives would improve with this adaptation. This coercive assimilation resulted in the Innu giving up some traditional activities. Because of these social disruptions and the systemic disadvantages faced by Indigenous peoples, community life in the permanent settlements often became associated with high levels of substance abuse, domestic violence, and suicide among the Innu.